g and happy, trouble will come time
enough, let me not hasten its advent."

But if time has only strewed the path of Minnie with flowers, and
ripened the promised beauty of her childhood, it has borne a heavy hand
upon the destiny of the La Croix family.

La Croix is dead; but before his death he took the precaution to have
Louis emancipated, and then made him a joint heir with his daughter. The
will he entrusted to the care of Camilla; but the deed of emancipation
he placed in the hands of Miriam, saying, "Here are your free papers,
and here are Louis'. There is nothing in this world sure but death; and
it is well to be on the safe side. Some one might be curious enough to
search out his history; and if there should be no legal claim to his
freedom, he might be robbed of both his liberty and his inheritance; so
keep these papers, and if ever the hour comes when you or he should need
them, you must show me."

Miriam did as she was bidden; but her heart was lighter when she knew
that freedom had come so near her and Louis.

Le Croix, before his death, had sold the greater part of his slaves, and
invested the money in Northern bonds and good Northern securities.
Camilla had married a gentleman from the North, and is living very
happily upon the old plantation. She does not keep an overseer, and
tries to do all in her power to ameliorate the condition of her slaves;
still she is not satisfied with the system, and is trying to prepare her
slaves for freedom, by inducing them to form, as much as possible,
habits of self-reliance, and self-restraint, which they will need in the
freedom which she has determined they shall enjoy as soon as she can
arrange her affairs to that effect. But she also has to proceed with a
great deal of caution.

The South is in a state of agitation and [foment?]. The air is laden
with rumors of a [rising?] conflict between the North and the South, and
any want of allegiance to Southern opinions is punished either as a
crime if the offender is a man, or with social ostracism and insult if a
woman.

The South in the palmy days of her pride and power would never tolerate
any heresy to her creed, whose formula of statement might have been
written we believe in the divine right of the Master, to take advantage
of the weakness, ignorance, and poverty of the slave; that might makes
right, and that success belongs to the strongest arm.[1]

Some of her former friends were beginning to eye her with co